Monday, November 21, 2005

Hello again (Kate Bush)

I see that it's been nearly a month since I was last here. That's mainly because nothing interesting has been happening to me in that time, or rather nothing which I would consider posting here has happened. I've been very busy at work and so in the evenings I'm too tired/fed-up/frustrated to write about anything.

What is interesting is the release of Kate Bush's new double cd "Aerial", which no doubt people have read about elsewhere. I was an early adopter of Kate, thrilling to the sound of "Wuthering Heights" as it issued from the radio when I was living in London in January 1978. As soon as the album containing WH was announced, I rushed down to the local record shop (situated just opposite Finchley Road underground station) and was amazed whilst I listened to the first side of "The Kick Inside" on headphones.

A year and a bit later came "Lionheart", which in some ways is better and some ways not so good as TKI, and then came "Never for ever", which as far as I am concerned was Kate's masterpiece. True, I could have done without the raucous "Violin", but the depth and variety of the other tracks took my breath away. I remember thinking at the time that the album opened up several directions and that it would be interesting to see which one Kate took.

In my opinion, "The dreaming" was a move in the wrong direction. I found that album extremely hard to listen to, which might have been an artifact of the poor Israeli vinyl pressing. Now that I have it on cd, I still don't listen to this album. "The hounds of love" was a step in the right direction, but it was becoming clear to me that I preferred Kate's more commercial material (ie "Running up the hill" and "Cloudbursting") to her more experimental/artistic songs. I even bought the record which came next ("The sensual world") but rarely listened to it; since 1991 I've only been listening to cds and I haven't replaced TSW, so it seems that I will never listen to it again.

I was intrigued by the announcement of Kate's return to the recording studio and awaited the arrival of the discs with some - but not overbearing - curiosity. And now that I have the double album and played it constantly for a week, I can come to the conclusion that I don't share the same artistic vision as Kate does. I can listen to the music and marvel at the production, but the songs don't interest me, a failing which can be traced all the way back to the very first album. To be honest, the soundworld which Kate is making hasn't changed very much since THOL, even though the technology has changed tremendously. Once she was a pioneer, now she sounds tame.

"Aerial" joins the other Kate Bush discs which reside on the back burner.